24. Crew of Girls
Chapter 24
Crew of Girls
Bonnie
I can’t stop staring at Rafe.
He’s my boss, sure, but he’s also intoxicating to watch with tourists—the ones not flirting with him anyway—pointing out the details of each painting. What he loves, how his process works, and everything in between. I could hear him talk about art all day long, and thankfully, I’m getting paid to do so.
It’s weird; I feel like I’ve never truly noticed his passion until now. Yes, he’s proud, but this is … different. I see an extra quirk beside his lips when he discusses techniques. It’s new. I’ve been staring for so many years; I didn’t know there were still new things to notice.
“How’s that illustration coming along?” he asks, leaning on the counter.
His gaze—that hooded gaze over brown eyes—is nice too. Very, very nice.
I’m working on my piece for the Howling Ravens’ second round of the competition. For the first round, I only needed to submit a portfolio, but the email this morning gave a task— create a badass piece of merch.
I know what Mom and Dad would say. That’s a little unprofessional, don’t you think?
It is, but I love the sentiment. I love that it isn’t a complicated design brief with rigid parameters.
Create cool shit , is what it basically said, and that’s what I used to love doing.
I’ll go back to creating designs in the fall because I know I have to, but now? Now, I want to embrace what I’m doing and go for it.
The sketch in front of me is of a man on a motorcycle with the head of a raven. It looks pretty badass, if I do say so myself.
“I’m still … off though,” I admit out loud.
Rafe hums, spreads his fingers over the tablet to zoom in. “Maybe he needs a hat. You’re a hat person, aren’t you?”
“False. Leo and I stand in solidarity on that,” I say.
We exchange a smile, and it’s everything I’ve dreamed of for the last couple of nights.
After Saturday, he had to work on canvas projects for the store, so I stayed at home, working on my own art. I haven’t been able to bask in his crooked smile.
I would have killed to come over and hang out, but things are still so tenuous. He’s the guy who made me orgasm, who claims he wants me all to himself, but he’s also still Rafe. His studio is his sanctuary, just like my art shed in the backyard is my safe place. He doesn’t want to talk about personal things, and he probably wouldn’t want to hang out and watch reality TV. He doesn’t want the role of boyfriend.
I guess the difference is that I’d let him into my safe place anytime, even if he didn’t want it. I have to be okay that our relationship will never be like that for him.
“I’ve been using those books you let me borrow,” I say.
“Helpful?”
“The notes in the margins are. And the doodles.”
Rafe marked up almost every page with his own details and input. He may be the one with permanent ink on his skin, but his chicken scratch is tattooed into my brain.
Under the counter, his pinkie strokes against my thigh. “I knew you were using me for my art.”
“Caught again,” I say.
I could look into his eyes all day long, and his aren’t tearing away from me either. I wonder what they would look like roaming over my body. I want to be his next model. I want to be the one on papers hidden in secret drawers. I like that we’re each other’s dirty little secret.
“We’re stealing you for lunch,” a voice says, jolting me from my fantasy.
I look up and find not one, but four women staring at me.
Wendy, Lulu, Izzy, and my sister-in-law, Marina, stand in a cluster at the shop’s entrance. The bell above the door wasn’t our canary in a coal mine. It’s propped open for the summer. I’m just thankful nothing else was happening.
Wendy, with her brown hair tied back in a delicate ribbon, places her palm on Marina’s lower back. Marina, Cassidy’s wife, is wobbling back and forth like a penguin, stomach round with her second child. Following behind the two, initially hidden from my view, is my niece, Melody.
“Auntie Bon!” she yells, running across the store and ramming into my knees. She has the same angelic honey-blonde hair as Marina, but with the unruly curls of my brother Cassidy. She clings to my legs. “We get ice cream!”
At almost two and a half, she knows a lot of words, but sentences are still a bit rudimentary. She sure knows the words for ice cream though.
Rafe’s eyebrows rise, and I give an embarrassed flush.
“I didn’t know I was taking a lunch today,” I admit.
“Did you not hear Izzy say ‘steal’?” Lulu chimes in, moseying to the counter.
Her eyes dart from my thigh to Rafe’s hand, only centimeters away. He crosses his arms, an unnatural way of covering it up, but better than nothing.
Lulu tongues her cheek with a grin.
She had some questions for me after the concert, all of which I explained as logically as possible.
“Wait, he’s actually teaching you about sex?!”
“Shh!” I hissed, as if anyone could hear us from the privacy of our cottage.
She knows about my and Rafe’s deal, but I conveniently left out that we’re now exclusive. If I can’t make sense of it in my head, it’s best I don’t put that burden on my best friend as well.
Thankfully, Wendy and Marina are too busy looking at art prints to notice how close Rafe’s hand was to my leg. Izzy, however, is giving a judging look at Rafe.
My stomach sinks like a weight.
Melody, just now realizing she’s also at knee level with the tattooed man beside her, shifts to hide behind my legs.
Without missing a beat, Rafe grabs a mermaid sticker from the small bowl on the counter and holds it out to her as an offering. It’s not a cutesy, pastel mermaid, like she might be used to; it’s more American traditional, in the same style as Rafe’s tattoos. But with a growing smile, Melody takes it in her tiny fist and clutches it close to her chest. Her blue eyes shimmer a bit brighter, and, God, I know that look. I see it in every reflection whenever I’m near Rafe. She already adores him.
“It’s officially her lunch break,” Izzy says, waltzing to the counter and stealing a sticker for herself. Rafe’s lips tighten into a line. “She’s coming with us.”
“Thievery,” Rafe deadpans, and she grins.
“You owe me anyway.”
I look between them. I don’t know what agreement they have, but Rafe doesn’t say anything snarky back. They give understanding looks and immediately avert their eyes.
“We have a baby shower to discuss,” Marina says. “The whole town will be there.”
Rafe stiffens. His jaw tightens.
“I mean, you’re obviously invited too,” she quickly adds.
He forces a smirk, a kind of knowing glance. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”
Marina twists on her heel to look at me, wincing.
Lulu grabs my arm and tugs until I walk around the counter and join her. She loops her arm through mine and escorts me to the door.
When Melody rejoins us, Rafe gives her a small smile and a cute little wave with his forefinger. It’s a good thing Lulu is holding me up because I could easily melt.
“I’ll be back in twenty,” I call back to him.
“Thirty,” Izzy yells instead, tossing on her sunglasses and striding out the door, hand in hand with my niece.
“Thirty?” I murmur as a question. “Sorry,” I say to Rafe through a cringing smile. “I’ll be back.”
He huffs out a laugh through his nose. “It’s fine.”
My forced grin twitches. Nothing makes me feel younger than looking at the man I’m sleeping with and hoping against hope that he doesn’t just see me as the desperate teen awaiting his approval.
Lulu tugs me out the door, and he disappears from my view.
“You came home late last weekend,” Wendy announces.
We’ve been at our iron table outside for less than one minute. Ice cream hasn’t even had the chance to dribble down the side of my bowl yet, despite the sun beaming overhead and the wind coming off the sea.
“How do you know that?” I ask, eyeing Lulu. I didn’t think she’d go running to Wendy.
“Milo told her,” Lulu counters quickly, raising an eyebrow, as if to say, It wasn’t me, you jerk.
“How’d he find out?”
Wendy exhales. “Apparently, Harriett heard from Moira, who heard from Starkey?—”
“Bobbi or Charles?”
“Charles,” Lulu says.
Wendy continues, “Who heard from Peter, who heard from Noodler, sailing at an ungodly time of night, that you got home late.”
My shoulders slouch. This town, I swear.
“I went to a concert,” I explain, hoping that Noodler didn’t also hear the motorbike or that he was possibly too drunk to put two and two together.
That man loves spending weekends sailing with a bottle of rum. Jasper’s told me Noodler sometimes gets to work late because he got lost the night before.
“Went to a concert with who?” Marina asks, eating a spoonful of her ice cream before handing the spoon to Melody to try it as well.
“By myself,” I lie.
Both Lulu and Izzy raise their eyebrows. Lulu tries to cover up her surprise by swirling ice cream in her bowl, but Izzy isn’t polite enough to grant me more than a sly smirk.
I should have known Rafe would tell her. I wonder if she’ll tell Peter. No, she barely tolerates my brother. There’s no way.
“Oh, you could have asked me to go,” Wendy says with a pouty lip.
“Or me!” Marina adds. “I’m not too pregnant to party.”
She shakes her massive preggo knockers. Marina’s aversion to bras will never change. I laugh and shield my eyes jokingly.
“You’re gonna kill someone with those,” I say.
“Or make someone else very happy when there’s a nip slip,” Izzy adds.
“This town wishes ,” Lulu says.
“I am a bit of a house,” Marina admits.
“But a cute house with a garden and fresh laundry smell,” Wendy chimes in.
Marina sits up straighter. “Why, thank you, Wendy.”
I like Marina. She moved back three years ago, accidentally becoming Cassidy’s roommate in some epic mix-up with tenant agreements. Just like Jasper and Wendy, it seemed like fate that they ended up together. They’ve since given birth to Melody as a cute little uh-oh baby, eloped on a cruise—much to Ma’s disdain—and are now nearly finished baking their second child.
“So, how was the concert alone?” Marina asks me. “Did you go to meet cute guys?”
“Of course she did,” Lulu says quickly, leaving me no room to lie again.
Like before, Izzy stares at me pointedly with her sharp blue eyes. Despite her being five foot nothing, I’m pretty sure she could make any hostage crack without a single torture device.
I won’t break. I want whatever is going on with Rafe to be for me. I like our little bubble. I want his hands on my waist, his tongue between my thighs, and the kisses on my neck to belong to me. I want him to be mine before someone else tells me how bad of an idea this whole thing is.
“Why didn’t you invite Harriett?” Wendy asks.
“Are you serious?” Lulu deadpans.
Wendy laughs, always too kind for her own good. “You should have, Bon.”
“And have her lecture me on one-night stands?” I say. “No thanks.”
“So, there was a one-night stand?” Marina says, rubbing her shoulder against mine.
Melody scrunches her nose. “What’s a one-night?—”
“A type of bedtime story,” Marina says quickly.
“A really good one,” Lulu adds with a wink.
Wendy pushes Lulu’s forearm, but Marina brightly laughs.
“You’re gonna teach her wrong things?” Wendy whispers with eyebrows drawn in.
Marina waves her off. “She won’t even remember.”
Their parenting styles are very different. Whereas Marina is more free-flowing, Wendy firmly believes in a binary of right and wrong. As an elementary school teacher, she’s a proponent for proper education.
“It’s kind of irresponsible to sleep with someone random, isn’t it?” Wendy asks, still maintaining her worry.
I open my mouth, then close it back.
“Well, I don’t … I don’t think so,” I say. My unease very quickly turns to something different.
What right does Wendy have to judge me? She dated my brother when he was her boss. She was the nanny, and they crossed not only that questionable line, but the unspoken boundary of him being Peter’s older brother.
But Wendy was also there for Sam like the mother he couldn’t have, and she comforted Jasper when he was still dealing with the grief of losing Sam’s parents—his closest friends. Maybe that makes her situation different from my messy relationship with my boss.
She’s altruistic.
I’m me.
“Please don’t say anything to my brothers, Wendy,” I say.
“Yeah, be cool for once, Wendy,” Izzy throws in with a playful smile.
Lulu immediately nudges Marina. “And don’t you dare gossip to Cassidy.”
“Like I would.”
“You would,” Lulu says.
“Okay, but not with this!” Marina says with a laugh. “This is girls’ time.” She rubs her belly. “Plus, little shrimp in here needs some good gossip that only we share together, without Daddy.”
“I don’t like you calling my brother Daddy,” I say.
“You don’t wanna know what we?—”
“Marina!” Wendy chastises, eyeballing my niece again.
“Damn, Maggie’s finally getting her crew of girls, isn’t she?” Izzy says, changing the subject.
“We need to overpower the uncles one day.” Marina shrugs. “I’ve got Wendy working with me now too.”
Wendy touches her own stomach, a pink glow radiating on her cheeks. She’s only got a tiny baby bump. It’s the type of bump that might form if you’ve eaten too much takeout, but it’s still there.
“I like a big family,” Marina continues. “When are you gonna join the cause, Bon?”
My stomach flips. I’ve always imagined me with a husband, but I’ve never thought past that. Midmorning coffee at a café. Maybe a midday stroll after painting all day. Afternoon sex. Our house wouldn’t be neat. We’d maybe have a cat or two. And in the back of my mind, that person was always a tattooed guy with raven-black hair.
“She wants to do her own thing,” Lulu says.
“Always has,” Wendy adds with a smile.
I shift in my chair uncomfortably. I know she didn’t mean it in any certain way. Wendy would never. But the idea that they’re gonna be living in some girl-power world and I won’t be a part of it … feels lonely.
Ma will admire them and their daughters and family legacies, and I’ll still be me.
Jasper is Dad of the Year.
Cassidy is Never Harbor’s Mr. Sunshine.
Even Milo would be the type of dad to put his kid in a sweater vest and promote a diet of all A’s on a report card.
For the first time I wonder, Where would Rafe fit in?
But that doesn’t matter, does it? Because he will never have to fit in.
Wendy’s phone buzzes, and she picks it up, instantly grinning. “Okay, Mags thinks the baby shower should be next Sunday!”
“Yes! She throws the best showers!” Marina says. “Melody’s had a three-tier cookie cake. Trust me, it’s possible, and, yes, it was a dream.”
Wendy blinks in awe. Even my best friend squirms in her seat. I’ve never seen Lu as the type of person wanting the whole family thing, but maybe I’ve been wrong. Maybe she hasn’t told me because she knew it wasn’t my thing.
Maybe that’s okay to want different things. Rafe keeps telling me to be myself. That that’s the best version of me. He hasn’t been wrong before.
I straighten in my chair.
I don’t fit in with what the women in my family want, but who’s ever said that’s a bad thing? Who’s ever said what I want is wrong or what they want is wrong?
Maybe a secret life in art and summer flings is who I am.
Maybe that’s all right.
Maybe.